[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 125 (Wednesday, June 28, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39854-39856]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-16255]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Economic Research Service


Notice of Intent To Seek Approval to Collect Information

AGENCY: Economic Research Service, USDA.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. 
L. No. 104-13) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations at 
5 CFR 1320 (60 FR 44978, August 29, 1995), this notice announces the 
Economic Research Service's (ERS) intention to request approval for a 
new information collection from participants in the Special 
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC); 
from local WIC agency staff; and from food store cashiers, to address 
the legislative mandate in the William F. Goodling Child Nutrition 
Reauthorization Act of 1998 ( Pub. L. 105-336, 112 Stat. 3143) to study 
the impact of cost containment in the WIC program. This information 
will be used in the Assessment of WIC Cost-Containment Practices to 
analyze the effects of current cost-containment practices established 
by States on program participation, selected participant outcomes, and 
program costs.

DATES: Written comments on this notice must be received by September 1, 
2000 to be assured of consideration.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR COMMENTS: Requests for additional information 
should be directed to Phil R. Kaufman, Food Markets Branch, Food and 
Rural Economics Division, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, 1800 M. St., NW, Room N2118, Washington, D.C. 20036-5801. 
For further information contact: Phil R. Kaufman, 202-694-5376. Submit 
electronic comments to [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Title: Paperwork Reduction Act Submission (OMB-83-1).
    Type of Request: New collection of information.
    Abstract: ERS of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible 
for conducting studies and evaluations of the Nation's food assistance 
programs that are administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), 
U.S. Department of Agriculture. WIC is the second largest domestic 
food-assistance program in the United States. In Federal fiscal year 
1998, WIC served approximately 7.4 million participants each month at 
an annual cost approaching $4 billion (FNS, 1998). WIC is administered 
through grants to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, 
Guam, American Samoa, the American Virgin Islands, and 33 Indian Tribal 
Organizations. State WIC agencies administer the program through 
roughly 2,000 local agencies representing about 10,000 service delivery 
sites.
    WIC provides a comprehensive set of services including supplemental 
foods, nutrition education, and increased access to health care and 
social services for pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women; 
infants; and children up to the age of five years. To qualify for WIC, 
a health or nutritional risk must be documented by a health 
professional and participants must be income-eligible.
    WIC is not an entitlement program. Each State must operate within 
annual funding levels established via a formula devised by FNS to 
distribute funds appropriated by the Congress. This

[[Page 39855]]

necessitates setting a maximum caseload for each local agency. When a 
local agency reaches this maximum, a system of priorities is used to 
allocate benefits to eligible applicants. As a consequence, WIC 
officials seek to contain program costs, particularly food costs, so 
that they can serve the maximum feasible number of eligible persons 
with the available funds. Cost-containment strategies employed by State 
WIC agencies fall into three main categories:

--Restricting the size, brand, and price range of food items that 
participants can buy with WIC benefits;
--Restricting the number and/or types of approved WIC vendors (food 
stores); and
--Purchasing food items with manufacturer rebates.

    Currently, all State agencies are required to buy infant formula 
under rebate contracts and are strongly encouraged by FNS to employ 
practices intended to reduce other costs of food benefits for women and 
children. By design, the planned study will not examine infant formula 
rebates. By reducing food costs, cost-containment practices have the 
potential to increase the number of eligible women, infants and 
children served by WIC. Concerns have been raised, however, that overly 
restrictive policies may reduce participants' access to and consumption 
of prescribed foods, and may ultimately lead to reduced participation 
and adverse health impacts. In addition, some observers have questioned 
whether cost-containment practices save enough in food costs to offset 
their additional administrative costs.
    As mandated by the William F. Goodling Child Nutrition 
Reauthorization Act of 1998, ERS is conducting a study to describe and 
assess the effects of these practices on seven outcomes: (1) Program 
participation; (2) access and availability of prescribed foods; (3) 
voucher redemption rates and actual food selections by participants; 
(4) participants on special diets or with specific food allergies; (5) 
participant use and satisfaction of prescribed foods; (6) achievement 
of positive health outcomes; and (7) program costs. Pub. L. 105-336, 
Sec. 203(r), 112 Stat. 3143, 3166. This study will provide the first 
systematic data on the balance struck by WIC State agencies between the 
goals of nutritional improvement and customer satisfaction and the need 
to make the most of available program funds.
    The study is being conducted in six States: California, 
Connecticut, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas. These States 
were purposively selected and recruited to participate because of their 
use of specific combinations of the main types of cost-containment 
practices and to represent diversity in geographical location, size, 
and race/ethnicity of WIC participants. This selection method is 
appropriate because of the need for State cooperation and because the 
study is intended to explore the possibility that WIC cost-containment 
practices have significant impacts on participants and program costs, 
not to provide definitive, nationally-representative impact estimates.
    ERS, working with Abt Associates, Inc., who will collect the 
information, will draw on several data sources in each of the six 
participating States. Maximum use will be made of existing data in 
State WIC information systems, including participant certification 
records, food instrument issuance and redemption records, and vendor 
locations and characteristics. These data will be used to construct 
sample frames for a survey of WIC participants, a survey of WIC 
vendors, and focus groups with WIC participants who do not pick up all 
of their WIC food vouchers, as well as in the analyses of outcomes. A 
second existing information source is supermarket scanner data, which 
will provide information on WIC transactions (such as brand and size of 
food products selected) for a subset of WIC-approved vendors within 
each State. Finally, electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transaction data 
will provide similar information for WIC transactions in Ohio, the only 
selected State that will be using EBT to process WIC transactions 
during the study period.
    The remaining data sources, for which OMB clearance will be needed, 
are a survey of WIC participants, a screener survey to recruit WIC 
participants for focus groups, a survey of WIC food availability and 
prices, and interviews with WIC staff. The Survey of WIC Participants 
is a telephone survey of active WIC recipients in each of the six 
participating States, with field follow-up. The survey will be 
administered to a random sample of recipients selected by a two-stage 
process. In each State, three study sites will be selected, one from 
each stratum defined by urban, suburban, and rural areas. WIC 
participants will then be randomly selected from a list of all 
participants residing in the study sites, stratified by women and 
children.
    The Survey of WIC Participants will collect information relevant to 
all study objectives including: access to WIC vendors; food item 
selections and food consumption; satisfaction with WIC food items; food 
preferences; food selection problems associated with special diets or 
food allergies; use of health services; and selected participant 
demographics not available from State WIC records. Cross-state analyses 
will compare responses of participants from States implementing one or 
more types of cost-containment practice to responses of participants 
from States who are not using the same (or any) practices to determine 
whether there are any systematic differences in the relevant outcome 
measures. Within-state analyses will focus on a comparison of responses 
from those participants who are and are not constrained by cost-
containment practices. Finally, responses of participants with special 
diets or food allergies will be examined to determine the extent to 
which they may have greater problems associated with cost-containment 
than other participants.
    To explore the possible effects of cost containment on participant 
drop-out rates, the study will use State information systems data to 
identify those WIC participants who have failed to pick up one or more 
of their monthly food package instruments. A screening interview will 
be used to select those participants whose decision not to pick up 
their food instruments may have been affected by cost-containment 
practices. Focus groups with these WIC participants will take place in 
each participating State.
    The Survey of Food Prices and Item Availability will be a major 
data source for estimating cost savings due to cost-containment 
practices; it also provides information on both the variety of WIC 
foods offered and shelf availability. Abt Associates data collectors 
will obtain information on food items normally stocked by asking store 
cashiers to scan a set of UPC (Universal Product Code) codes for a 
standard list of foods meeting Federal WIC guidelines. Stores will be 
sampled from among all WIC-authorized vendors in the study sites 
selected for the Survey of WIC Participants; stores will be stratified 
by store type (supermarket vs. grocery store), size, and WIC vs. non-
WIC status. In States with vendor restrictions, non-WIC vendors will 
also be sampled and surveyed. In States with vendor restriction 
practices, food prices and availability will be compared between WIC 
vendors and non-WIC vendors. In States with item restriction practices, 
food prices and availability will be compared between WIC-approved food 
items and non-WIC approved foods that meet Federal guidelines.

[[Page 39856]]

    Finally, State and local WIC officials in each of the participating 
States will be interviewed about the expenses of implementing cost 
containment, the extent to which savings have been used to increase 
participation, and other impacts on program operations. Interviews with 
the six State WIC directors will be conducted in person. The director 
of each selected local agency and other staff with key responsibilities 
related to cost containment will also be interviewed; these interviews 
will be conducted by telephone. The information collected from State 
and local WIC staff is essential for evaluating the effects of cost-
containment practices on program participation and costs.
    The above-mentioned information collection is needed to complete 
the Assessment of WIC Cost-Containment Practices mandated by Congress 
and to equip FNS and State WIC administrators with a comprehensive 
understanding of the potential impacts of cost containment as they make 
decisions in the future regarding the implementation of these 
practices. No existing data source can provide all of the information 
needed to complete the evaluation. Existing WIC information system 
databases from the six States will be used to construct the survey 
sample frames and to obtain demographic data on participants and WIC 
vendors affected by cost containment. Computer-assisted telephone 
interviewing will be used to minimize respondent burden and interviewer 
error in the Survey of WIC Participants. Focus group samples will be 
drawn from a limited geographic area to minimize travel time and 
expense for focus group participants. The survey questionnaire and 
screener and local agency interviews will be kept as simple and 
respondent-friendly as possible. Responses are voluntary and 
confidential. Survey and interview data will be combined with other 
data for statistical purposes and reported only in aggregate or 
statistical form.
    Estimate of Burden: Public reporting burden for this data 
collection is estimated to vary by the type of respondent. Responses to 
the Survey of WIC participants are estimated to average 30 minutes. 
Responses from WIC participants who did not pick up their WIC vouchers 
are estimated at 5 minutes, on average, for a screening interview and 
an average of 90 minutes for the focus group session. The Survey of 
Food Prices will involve an estimated 15 minutes of time from the store 
cashier for scanning. Responses by local agency WIC staff are estimated 
to total 60 minutes, on average. The estimates include time for 
listening to instructions, gathering data needed, and responding to 
questionnaire or interview/discussion items.
    Respondents: Participants in the local WIC agency staff, and WIC-
authorized food store cashiers in six selected States.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 2,052 in total: 1,200 active WIC 
participants, 600 WIC participants who failed to pick up their 
vouchers, 72 WIC participants for focus groups, 18 local WIC agency 
staff, and 162 food store cashiers.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden on Respondents: Total of 816.5 hours. 
Survey of WIC Participants: 600 hours, Screener Survey for Focus 
Groups: 50 hours, Focus Groups: 108 hours, Local Agency Interview: 18 
hours, and Survey of Food Prices and Item Availability: 40.5 hours. 
Copies of the information to be collected can be obtained from Phil R. 
Kaufman, Food Markets Branch, Food and Rural Economics Division, 
Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1800 M. St., 
NW, Room N2118, Washington, D.C. 20036-5801, 202-694-5376.

Comments

    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the Department, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the Agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; (d) ways to 
minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are 
to respond, such as through the use of appropriate automated, 
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology. Comments should be sent to the 
address stated in the preamble. All responses to this notice will be 
considered and included in the request for OMB approval. All comments 
will also become a matter of public record.

    Dated: June 22, 2000.
Betsey Kuhn,
Director, Food and Rural Economics Division.
[FR Doc. 00-16255 Filed 6-27-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-18-P